Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Ballot Campaign Launched to Keep Michigan Wolves Protected

January 14, 2013

Wayne Pacelle

Last year was the worst year for wolves in half a century – with Minnesota, Wisconsin and Wyoming opening up trophy hunting and sport
trapping seasons and an expansion of those activities in Idaho and Montana, on
top of the standard fare of aerial gunning, trapping and shooting of wolves in
Alaska. In the waning days of the Michigan legislature’s lame duck session,
lawmakers authorized declaring the wolf as a game species, setting it up to
become the seventh state with a wolf hunting and trapping program in the fall
of 2013.

In 2013, however, we are hoping to turn the fortunes of wolves
around. Today we announce with our coalition partners the launch of a referendum campaign in Michigan to
nullify the legislature’s ill-considered action, in order to maintain protections
for wolves there. We helped lead an effort seven years ago to restore
protections for mourning doves, and voters in the Wolverine State responded by
favoring the measure in every county. There are only about 700 wolves in
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and until 2012, they had been protected under the
terms of the Endangered Species Act for nearly 40 years.

We are joined in this effort by local humane societies, environmental and
conservation groups, Native American tribes, and leading wolf scientists, who
decry the idea of a trophy hunt at this time. Rolf Peterson, Ph.D., chair of
the federally-appointed Recovery Team for the Gray Wolf, Eastern
Population, and a research professor at Michigan Technological University, told
the legislature that “[human-wolf] conflicts can already be managed under
existing state law, which allows for lethal control of individual wolves that
are perceived to threaten human life and property.” He added, “wolves provide a
firewall against new diseases in deer,” such as Chronic Wasting Disease.
Peterson has studied wolf-prey population dynamics for more than 40 years at
Isle Royale National Park in northern Michigan, and is one of the world’s
leading authorities on wolves, specifically the wolves of Michigan.

Other scientists also note that wolves have had a beneficial “cascade
effect” on animal populations in their ecosystems, limiting populations of deer
and other ungulates. This reduces impacts on forest vegetation and crops,
and on automobile collisions with wildlife.

And let’s remember, nobody eats wolves. Killing them is more about
securing a trophy or a pelt, and more specifically, bragging
rights. That’s an important distinction, since most hunting involves
killing to consume meat. But that’s not at work here, and we expect to
align with many hunters who believe in the principles of full use of an animal
they kill.

So when you roll it all up, wolf hunting and trapping in Michigan is
unnecessary, inhumane and detrimental to farmers, motorists, tourists and
others who value wolves.

If you are a Michigan resident, we need your help on the ground. We
need volunteer petitioners to help us amass the 225,000 signatures in about 70
days – a tall order indeed. If we secure the signatures, it will put a
hold on the legislature’s wolf hunting bill, pending a statewide vote by
Michigan citizens. Please go to keepwolvesprotected.org
to help us in this critical campaign.
Paid for with regulated funds by the committee to Keep Michigan Wolves
Protected, 5859 W. Saginaw Hwy. #273, Lansing, MI 48917.

The film offers an abbreviated history of the relationship between wolves and people—told from the wolf’s perspective—from a time when they coexisted to an era in which people began to fear and exterminate the wolves.

The return of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains has been called one of America’s greatest conservation stories. But wolves are facing new attacks by members of Congress who are gunning to remove Endangered Species Act protections before the species has recovered.

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Inescapably, the realization was being borne in upon my preconditioned mind that the centuries-old and universally accepted human concept of wolf character was a palpable lie... From this hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were.

-Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

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“If you look into the eyes of a wild wolf, there is something there more powerful than many humans can accept.” – Suzanne Stone